The holidays bring more wreaths, lights, and fruitcake, but they can also bring more scammers and thieves out of the woodwork.
“I hate to say it, but they feed off of (the holiday spirit),” Columbia Police Chief Evan Burton said.
“They,” of course, refers to scammers. Over the years, scammers have created several ways to get money from their victims. Robocalls remain a prominent one. Robocallers use an automated voice to attempt to solicit money or personal information out of their victims.
An extension of these can be robo-texts, which have the same goal of extracting something from the target. A common sub-genre of this scam is to say that a package has been lost or that a package is out for delivery. These texts attempt to emulate the structure of official alerts from online storefronts or delivery services like FedEx. These are especially common in the days following Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
Another prominent scam is for the scammer to pretend to be collecting donations for law enforcement agencies. Chief Burton says to ignore these.
“If it’s a government agency such as a law enforcement agency, we’re not going to call you and ask for money. It’s not going to happen.”
Even more insidiously, some scammers impersonate children’s hospitals or animal shelters.
Over the last few years, a new type of scam has begun cropping up. Referred to as a “pig-butchering” scheme, the scam works by gaining trust with someone over text. They may initiate a conversation by pretending to have the wrong number. After days, weeks, or even months, the scammer may claim to have fallen on hard times and need money, at which point they will ask the target of the scam to send them prepaid gift cards or cryptocurrency. In 2023, the FBI alerted the public of holiday scam trends, and pig-butchering was one of those listed.
“They might get someone such as an elderly person who might be lonely. And then that’s where they grab them,” Chief Burton stated. “But any age… teens. Anyone can be scammed. Especially, we talk about teens… your PlayStation, your Xbox, you can be scammed on there as well, playing online video games.”
Not only do scams see an uptick in activity over the holiday season, thieves also tend to emerge during this time, as well. The influx of online shopping and deal-hunting can provide opportunists more chances to run off with packages.
“The dreaded porch pirates,” Chief Burton mused. “Knock on wood, we haven’t had many porch pirates, and that’s because of the Ring cameras.”
Still, safety.org ranks Kentucky as the most dangerous state for package theft, with 12 percent of poll responders saying they had a package stolen in the last three months (of the poll being conducted).
So, how can you stay safe from scams?
“If you second guess and think it’s a scam, just don’t respond. Don’t answer the phone. A lot of times, a scam is not going to leave you a voicemail. If you’re unaware about it, call the local PD, call the sheriff’s office, call the Kentucky State Police,” Chief Burton said. “Definitely do not send money. Do not mail cash, do not mail gift cards, credit card numbers, anything.”
You can also report scams to the Kentucky Attorney General through the office’s website.
Doorbell camera are great deterrents for porch pirates, and Burton said they have solved some cases easily because of the technology.
By Kenley Godby
kenley@adairvoice.com
